Arakhin 12b — the Talmud in English

the second, he went up and conquered Jehoiakim,

and consequently, his eighth year was the seventh for the conquest.

We learned in a beraita: Rabbi Yosei says: When the Temple was destroyed the first time, etc., it was the departure from the Sabbatical year, etc.,

and likewise the second time.

And we raise a difficulty:

And the second time,

the year in which the destruction occurred,

can you find it to have been the departure from the Sabbatical year? Since, after all, how long did the Second Temple stand? Four hundred and twenty

years.

And the year in which it was built was the first year of a Jubilee, for Jubilees are not practiced at the time of the destruction.

Four hundred

years out of those four hundred and twenty years amount

to eight Jubilees,

and another

fourteen

years amount

to two Sabbatical cycles.

And still

six remain

for the reckoning of its years. It follows that the year in which the four hundred and twenty years ended

was in the sixth year of a Sabbatical cycle,

and it was destroyed in the four hundred and twenty-first year, which is the year of release; so how is it written that it was the departure from the Sabbatical year?

And we answer:

This

is the statement of Rabbi Yosei;

who is it according to?

It is Rabbi Yehuda, who says: The fiftieth year counts here and there,

and is considered both the Jubilee year that is ending and the first year of the following Jubilee. Consequently, in each Jubilee there are only forty-nine years.

Eight

years, which were added

from the eight Jubilees

(for from each Jubilee one year is subtracted according to Rabbi Yehuda), will join

these six

(which exceed the Jubilees and the Sabbatical years within the four hundred and twenty years), which were included in the calculation above even according to the Sages who disagree with Rabbi Yehuda.

It follows that there are fourteen

excess years, which amount to two complete Sabbatical cycles.

It is found

that the four hundred and twenty years ended in the seventh year itself. And in the four hundred and twenty-first year,

which was the departure from the Sabbatical year,

it

was destroyed.

And we refute this:

If

Rabbi Yosei holds

like Rabbi Yehuda,

the first clause of the beraita will be difficult. For it says

that the first time

the Temple was destroyed at the departure from the Sabbatical year,

but one cannot find this

according to Rabbi Yehuda.

For it was taught: Israel counted seventeen Jubilees from when they entered the land until they departed

from it at the first destruction. And there were eight hundred and fifty years from the time of their entry until the destruction, for the First Temple was built four hundred and eighty years after the Exodus from Egypt, as explained in Kings. When we subtract the forty years that they spent in the wilderness, three hundred and forty years remain from this. And together with the four hundred and ten years of the Temple, there are eight hundred and fifty years.

However,

you cannot say that from the time they entered

literally

they counted

the years of the Jubilee,

for if you say so, it follows that the Temple was destroyed at the beginning of a Jubilee

[that is, in the Jubilee year]. For eight hundred and fifty amount exactly to seventeen Jubilees,

and

if so,

you cannot find

a way to reconcile what is written in Ezekiel,

“In the fourteenth year after the city was struck,”

and it was proved above that that prophecy occurred in the Jubilee year. It follows that the destruction was fourteen years before the Jubilee.

Rather, subtract from them seven

years

for they conquered

the land,

and seven

years

for they apportioned

it, for only afterward did they begin to count Jubilees

. And

then

you find

that the Jubilee year was

“in the fourteenth year after the city was struck,”

for since only eight hundred and thirty-six years were included in the reckoning, it follows that the destruction was in the thirty-sixth year of the seventeenth Jubilee.

And we conclude the difficulty:

And if it is according to Rabbi Yehuda,

that each Jubilee is forty-nine years,

bring seventeen

years that were added

from seventeen Jubilees

[for according to his view one year is subtracted from the fifty of each Jubilee],

cast them upon those

Jubilees that arose from the eight hundred and fifty years, and a surplus of seventeen years remains beyond the Jubilee. We subtract fourteen for the seven years in which they conquered and the seven years in which they apportioned the land, and three excess years remain. It follows

that it was

the destruction

in the third year of the Sabbatical cycle

of the eighteenth Jubilee; so how is it written that it was the departure from the Sabbatical year?

And we answer:

Those two

years during which Sennacherib exiled the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh,

until Jeremiah came and returned them, Rabbi Yehuda did not count them;

and he stopped the reckoning concerning them, for the Jubilee applies only when all its inhabitants are upon it. Only when Jeremiah returned them did they begin counting anew. And from then until the destruction there were thirty-six years. It follows that the year of the destruction was the departure from the Sabbatical year. [For five Sabbatical years amount to thirty-five years.] And the calculation also emerges that the Jubilee year was “in the fourteenth year after the city was struck.”

[But the beraita above, “Israel counted seventeen Jubilees, etc.,” disagrees with this and holds that even during those years of the exile of Sennacherib they counted Jubilees in order to sanctify the Sabbatical years, Tosafot].

Alternatively, you may say: Actually,

Rabbi Yosei

is according to the Sages,

who hold that the Jubilee year does not count toward the following Jubilee.

And when it teaches, “and likewise the second time,”

it is not speaking with regard to the departure from the Sabbatical year, but

with regard to the rest

of the times mentioned concerning the first destruction, namely, the Ninth of Av and the departure from Shabbat.

And we prove this:

This too is reasonable,

that not all the times written concerning the first destruction applied to the second.

For if you do not say so,

but say that everything that occurred during the first also occurred during the second,

“the watch of Jehoiarib,”

during which the First Temple was destroyed,

during the second, was it so? But was it not taught: Four watches

of the priesthood

went up from the exile

in the days of Ezra, from among the twenty-four watches that had been in the First Temple? The watch of

Jedaiah, Harim, Pashhur, and Immer. The prophets among them arose and divided them into twenty-four watches,

[to uphold the enactment of the earlier prophets, that the Temple service should be divided into twenty-four watches].

And in order to establish the order of their precedence, they wrote their names on twenty-four slips,

mixed them, and placed them in a lottery box.

Jedaiah came,

who was the first of these four watches from the days of the First Temple,

and took his portion and the portion of his colleagues

from his watch, which was divided into six. That is, he drew

six

of their slips one after another. And in the order in which they came up, so was the order of their watches.